


Last Millennium, There Was a Uni...

by runawaykael (garnetmantle)



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Titans - Fandom
Genre: Draco'verse, Early Work, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-12-31
Updated: 2001-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnetmantle/pseuds/runawaykael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Random bits of fluff and character-play, put in one place for my amusement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alternative Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Discussions in bed, re: magical aversions, magical possibilities, and post-coital exhaustion.

Alternative Magic

Garth was curled up against the pillows, watching him, as he had a habit of doing when the heat of lovemaking had calmed to sleepy warmth. Dick loosened an arm and leaned back, raising an eyebrow, knowing Garth could read his expression plainly even in the dark. 

"What?" 

Light fell over Dick's shoulder from a guttering candle, just enough to let him see the suspicious stillness to Garth's face. Concern prickled, until the mellow voice vibrated through connected chests, warmly amused. "Just an idle thought." 

After the last hour - wait, it was _that_ late? - hours, Garth was still capable of thought. That didn't seem fair… Although, Dick realized he wasn't sure for _whom_ , since there was a definite teasing tilt to the fine jaw, and he didn't feel at all conscious enough to anticipate his clever lover. Knowing he might very well regret it, he put his head back on the raised side of Garth's waist and managed, not even mumbling - much, "Anything you wanna share?"

 One of those broad, so attentive hands raised to rub slow circles on his bare shoulder, an idle pattern to match the bemused voice, still playful, but now sounding as if sleepiness had edged out the mischief. "On something I would have liked to." The hand slid down in a brief half-hug, then started those so-soothing patterns again. Garth really wasn't helping him have mind enough for good listening at the moment. "Share with you, I mean."

 "Oh, yeah?" _Okay, Grayson, even he couldn't hear that._ He shifted back again, rather than repeating the unintelligible murmur into Garth's skin. He stretched a little, only to return to his exact position, keeping his mouth clear this time. Hey - a guy didn't get that comfortable often. "Oh, yeah?" He closed his eyes and snuggled close, wrapping an arm around Garth's pulled up legs, settling contentedly between them and the rest of the hard body, that yielded instantly to cradle him, as the hand resumed its motion. He made a protesting, not-displeased murmur and arched lightly into the hand. "And stop that a minute, or I'll be asleep." 

Garth laughed, a low, quiet sound that thrummed through him. God, that felt good, even when his body wasn't registering it as arousing. Just - good. And the hand stopped but didn't withdraw, resting splayed against the skin of his back, pleasantly cool. "I was only thinking that Pallais has such a sense of humor."

The voice was only wistful and bemused, still, so Dick didn't shift around to study Garth's face as he normally would when his love came out with something like that. He couldn't quite manage not to cuddle closer, though, offering a comfort he didn't even really think was needed. Confirming, Garth only chuckled again, more quietly. Yes. That was so nice…

Dick blinked repeatedly. It'd been a long week  _And when isn't it, Grayson?_ and the evening with a particularly warm and playful Garth had finished doing him in. But even idle thoughts in candlelit darkness deserved more attention than that. "I think we both knew that, _cushla/cariad_. What's got that on your mind tonight?"

 Garth rolled over on his back, smiling at the sounds of protest Dick made until he had resettled, the dark head using his chest for pillow, this time. Dick shifted around until he was returning the favor by acting as a blanket, then repeated the question, softly. 

Dick was being dutiful. Which was understandable, considering he was justifiably nine-tenths asleep. Garth ran a hand through the silken hair, so soft, so different from his own coarse curls. Not to mention that it was entirely cute. Not that it would make him feel guilty for teasing that over-serious determined-attention.

"Just that - I keep finding new reasons to regret that you have so little tolerance for my magic…"

That brought Dick's head up instantly, wide blue eyes dark and earnest in the shadowed room. He shifted back towards sitting, but when Garth didn't relax the arm he'd curled around the slimmer shoulders, had to settle for propping on his arms to meet his lover's eyes. "Garth - you know - I hope you know - that I'd change that. If I had any choice at all, I mean. It isn't - tolerance. It isn't that I don't find it - awe-inspiring, and sometimes so amazingly beautiful, and you-"

Garth met the intent gaze, his own still and equally direct, knowing Dick couldn't register the amusement in his eyes in this light. If he were slightly less tired, he would've deduced from the buildup that he was being set-up.  _So very glad I persuaded him not to make rounds tonight. The lights are on, but he isn't all here at all._

"Garth, if there's something specific - you know it isn't all the time, or very bad. I'm sure we could figure something out, test the boundaries a little-"

Garth finally interrupted, when heavy lids and dogged tone started indicating something a little too close to real, if exhaustion evoked, distress. "Dick, for what I had in mind, any displeasure to you at would make it unfeasible. Pallais enjoys laughing, I think…"

"Pallais-" Suddenly grumpy, Dick censored whatever he would've said to that. He took a deep breath, and eased his body back down to Garth's cool, soft skin. God, how had he ended up with a lover who liked to talk after sex, when all he wanted was to sink into absolute unconsciousness? He closed his eyes and rested his head back down. "Pallais may be laughing, but I'm just confused. Small words, please?"

Garth tugged the unresisting form further up his body, to wrap both arms around the solid shoulders. Relishing, as always, the lack of tension, the fact that Dick really was falling into oblivious sleep - it had taken time for trust to overcome ingrained training to that degree. "I was thinking of magic specifically created to bring us both pleasure, _cushla_. Your intolerance to it - it causing you any distress at all - would negate the point entirely."

The warm breath against his chest was slowly evening out, and Garth was just deciding to let the joke go, pulling Dick even closer for sleep, when the dark head whipped up. "Wait. What?"

Ah, that sounded more awake. Garth fought the smile off the corners of his lips, tried to keep the humor from his voice. He hadn't had Bat-training in inscrutability, but he did all right. "Surely the Romany have such practices, among their magics? Although, in most cultures, including my own, they were generally used more for the generation of energy for seasonal and death magics than for personal-"

"Garth. Wait. You're talking about-" He knew the sensitive Atlantean skin would register the heat of a blush, that close, but he couldn't help it. "You mean - Atlanteans - you - are you talking about-"

After a moment, Garth raised a hand and, using one finger, firmly closed Dick's jaw. Dick would never get any sleep if Garth waited for him to spit out 'sex-magic'. He'd been raised a circus gypsy, so the idea of such things were a part of his experience. But years of having rationality and testable theory drilled into him made them difficult to access when they were discussing real life. He 'believed' in Garth's magic because he'd seen incontrovertible proof of its effects. But memories of dried-flower charms and too-sugary potions guaranteed to win kisses - I would be a stretch to include them in the same category.

"I'm talking about magic that involves love-making. A circuit created between two people, feeding off one another's pleasure-"

"Garth…" It was mostly a groan, and Dick's head thumped down, eyes closing. "Are you serious? I need to _sleep_." The sudden renewed tension in his body - part of his body - told Garth what had produced that comment.

Interested, he started to raise a hand - and stopped. Dick really wasn't up for anything more in that direction, not tonight. Although the fact that the mere idea of what he'd been pondering could affect Dick like that made Garth's own temperature rise. 

Shifting deeper into the pillows, the mage wrapped his love in protective arms and an untidily grabbed sheet. "I was teasing you - but not with an untruth," he murmured. "If you're truly interested-" Dick gave a little sound between a whimper and a groan and an incipient snore, and Garth grinned into his shoulder. "Perhaps we can explore some limits… the magic of the chi lines has never seemed to disturb you…"

Dick gave another little sound, and Garth chuckled, and the little sound got louder, until an actual snore interrupted it. Garth shifted his position, tilting Dick's head on his chest until the sound stopped, and settled the sheets more neatly about them. Moments later, he followed his lover into the land of shadows, both of them following the promise of interesting dreams-

End


	2. Empty Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You see, my children, when a shaky attempt at a PWP and a rambling character exploration love each other very much...
> 
> (and then get very silly...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For 'rith.  
> The Draco'verse concept and this version of Jason Todd belong to Kaylee-as-was. Although it all really belongs to DC. (No money, don't sue.)
> 
> This was supposed to be a short little sexy story as a pressie for 'rith. I should've known better. (In my defense, so should she!)
> 
> Beta-less and in serious need of the Anti-Ramble Axe. Marked Mature out of sheer paranoia.

Dick threw his arms out as he fell back, landing hard enough to bounce several times. There was no tension in the sinewy form, no effort made to use a lifetime's training to minimize the impact. When his body stopped moving, long mucles limp, the black topped head bounced several more times before he lay still. His eyes weren't open.

Garth set the tray with its two steaming cups on the end table, crossing his arms to lean hipshot on the back of an armchair. "With all deference to your acrobatic skills, Master Richard," he observed, "that looked suspiciously like the Nestea Plunge."

Dick cocked his head to open one blue eye, showing no surprise at the flawless British accent coming from an Atlantean mouth. And not shifting another muscle from in the boneless sprawl on the bed. "He's gone."

"Yes, thank you, I had noticed."

The single eye blinked, then both looked up at the ceiling of the broad loft. "He's gone. Never again will I hear that scratching and pounding on his bedroom door, or those melodic words-"

"'I gotta pee, you guys got your clothes on?'"

The switch, from a well known butler's drawling formality to an almost dead-on mimic of their recently dearly (very, very dearly) departed roommate, had Dick pushing up on his arms to grin at his lover's innocent expression. "Smart-aleck. And I'm going to tell Alfred you had his accent wrapped around the name of a tea that wasn't darjeeling."

Garth's already wide violet eyes were suddenly pulling off an excellent impression of lakes. "No, please - you can't. He's the only upworlder who can cook etraki properly. And he does. And he shares."

"He'll be so disappointed - can't you just see me telling him 'no, we can't come to dinner next week?' Hmmm? 'I have to punish my dearly beloved for impugning a Britishman's accent over tea, by depriving him of decent food. What he considers decent food, anyway.'" The mischief twitching openly at the corners of Garth's mouth vanished, expression smoothing into wounded innocence. "'Which you just cooked - and by the way, can I take him a box home? Because he'll look at me like a wounded two-week-old puppy with gills, and uhm, yes, as a matter of fact, it was you he was mimicking...'"

"Alfred would still send me food. Alfred likes me." Garth fixed him with a long moment of the previously mentioned Gillpuppy Eyes. Obviously openly waiting to be told that no, he wasn't liked, and wouldn't be fed, and that doing voice impressions in a moment of silliness with his lover was quite possibly a filleting offense.

Dick gave a rude snort and flopped back down to bounce on their bed again. "Garth, he's gone. I keep waiting to wake up and hear him stomping to the shower, or to find out I've spent the day in an alternate dimension and he's waiting in my real living room with a Knights game turned up loud enough to rattle the windows. Do you know what this means?"

Picking up one of the mugs of warm chai, Garth settled on the chair arm, crossing khaki-covered ankles as he kicked out of his shoes. He covered his smile by taking a sip of the sweet tea. When Dick's natural disciplined energy relaxed into one of its rare, unfocused cases of 'hyper' he really was illegally adorable, by any country's laws. "No more cooking-cow smell on hamburger night?"

"Right! And no more lip-prints on the milk carton."

"No more scent of failed science projects from forgotten glasses under his bed."

"No more grease-stained jeans polluting our laundry."

"No more mildewed towels on his carpet."

"You always say that. How can a towel mildew in one day?"

"I can smell it - it does. Don't ask me to explain surface biology. It produces human bombs, and people who break the light barrier, and makes purple a naturally-occurring hair color. You're acting surprised over mutant mildew?"

Dick smirked but didn't reopen his eyes, making a mental note to really, truly, honestly, stop leaving his towels on the floor. Alfred had trained him well, but somehow he always forgot about the towels. As usual, that particular mental note slipped off to the circular file before he finished his next sentence. "No more listening to the Diatribes of Teen Angst, as dictated by one Jason Todd Wayne."

"You'll probably still get one, if you call him that. Mr. Jason 'Todd is not my middle name.' And he's probably still doing the diatribes - an audience is optional, I think. I hope. No one's given him long range telepathy recently, have they? Imagine if you were able to provoke one from here."

"Don't even say that!" Dick bounced back up on his arms to stare past Garth in not-entirely-feigned horror. The door to the loft, with its standard but heavy-duty lock, and nonstandard but equally heavy-duty alarm, suddenly looked very thin. "Tell me again why we gave him a key?"

The lips Dick had really been focusing on, more so than on the words coming out of them, softened away from their teasing curl. "Because you miss him already, and you want him to visit."

Dick turned the look of horror on him directly, but it didn't hold up well under the gently knowing violet eyes. He slumped and glowered slightly, which only got him further smiled at. Which he could deal with. "Oh, sure, it isn't bad enough we've spent years having to listen for footsteps on the stairs every time we wanted to make love in our own place. Now you're trying to make the paranoia permanent."

"Well, his new place does have a phone. There's a lot to be said for an hour's warning, under such circumstances."

Dick blinked at him. "We are talking about the same guy, right? Red hair, stands over six feet, and all but the 'over' is made of bad manners?"

"I was talking about the guy who's utterly absorbed in getting his 'own life' set up, and in not letting anyone meddle in it. Fiercely determined that even our helping him move furniture today was an assault on his self-sufficiency. It should take him - oh, days, at least, to rationalize why appearing down here in no way compromises his independence."

Dick curled his legs in front of him and rested elbows on knees. "I should call him, tomorrow, shouldn't I?"

Garth put the mug down and stood; nodded decisively. "You should call him. Tomorrow." Burgundy fabric stretched in interesting ways over the deep chest as his arms folded.

Dick's eyes studied the pose, and the lean body suddenly several feet closer to their bed. Garth was completely capable of doing 'subtle,' but that emphasis hadn't been it. "You're nicer than I am. The guy who made it necesary for us to run off to the cabin every time we wanted ten minutes' guaranteed privacy, and you want me to make sure he stays around."

Garth took another smooth step toward the bed, then a long-fingered hand reached out to run through the thick, black hair curled against the back of Dick's neck. He no longer wore it in waves across his shoulders, but it wasn't quite the preppie-cut of his Police Academy days. There was enough to play with, and when Garth's fingers began doing so Dick smiled into his eyes for an instant. Then he rocked his head forward to give cool fingers access to a permanently tense neck.

Over the little sounds of happiness Dick made, as Garth obligingly curled behind him on the bed and took the hint, the Atlantean added, "I like running off with you. To the cabin or anywhere else. I liked the idea that Jason found the sense to come to you before he got himself in irreparable trouble, and that having to provide an example for him has kept you out of too much trouble. I liked that there's been someone keeping tabs on you, even when I wasn't here. If it takes keeping him around to keep you mindful of a need to keep your skin intact, I think I can deal."

Dick snorted, or tried to. He was mostly occupied in trying not to melt into the comforter under the familiar pressure of those careful fingers. "Jason Todd uhm as a good influence, on me? How insulted should I urr be? That's quite a testimonial. Ummm. I knew I should've taken dictation in high school. But no, all ah! the guys were supposed to take urmuh football manufacture. Or something. I forget. Yesss, there...."

The small moans only made Garth's hands more careful. More inclined to make long, slow rubs across warm skin instead of digging in fingertips. More likely to use his whole hands to stroke across the dense, smooth muscles of the tensing back. More conscientious about spreading the pressure across a broad expanse of sensitive nerves.

Purely out of care for human frailties, of course.

Not letting his voice slip into the register that would generally answer Dick's unsteady words, he shook his head. "You do know how to take dictation. But if you took that down, it'd just make him mad. How dare I presume to approve or disapprove of him? The sheer gall..."

"See? Smart-aleck."

Well, he was a smart something. Or at least the way every muscle in Dick's body arced when he let his massaging hands drift to the outside of denim-covered thighs suggested he was. He was considering moving beyond the IQ test toward the entrance exam when Dick's hands rested over his, stilling them briefly.

"Thank you, anyway. For finding things to approve of, and for being so patient."

Without pulling his hands free, Garth leaned forward, the length of his arms sliding around Dick's slightly slimmer shoulders. He rested his chin on the bare collarbone. "He's your family, Dick."

"I wanted this to be your place as much as mine, but he was such a jerk in so many little ways all the time." There was no need to add, 'especially to you.' Jays had always exempted Dick as a target for the worst of his moodiness. Garth definitely hadn't been that fortunate.

Garth's head tilted, until Dick could feel smiling lips against his skin. He was suddenly very glad he'd pulled his shirt off before collapsing on the bed. Garth hesitated, then shrugged slightly. "It wasn't always that easy, but- we've had the cabin, since I got back... He's - young, Dick. Patience wasn't that hard, although he'd probably see that as condescention too. And I do want him to stay a part of our lives, as much as you do." He ignored the 'hrmph' of unconvincing disagreement. "But - he isn't here tonight."

Dick felt those lips curl against his skin again and relaxed back into the solidity and softness of the cotton covered chest. He'd been tired in a vague way when he flopped down, more from the hecticness of 'moving day' than any physical or mental effort that'd been part of it. With Garth's hands gliding firmly over his skin, the vagueness was dissipating.

Rapidly.

The attentive touches were a promise that - finally, amazingly - there was no time limit on fulfilling. Dick thought it'd be weeks before he stopped listening for feet on the stairs, before he lost the habit of mentally reviewing his protege's wherabouts before letting himself respond to those talented hands.

Maybe Bruce had been this relieved when he moved out for college... But then, the mansion wasn't exactly a one bathroom loft, and none of Bruce's lovers had ever been the live-in kind. Dick's main problem with them had been trying to dodge the ones who thought displaying maternal interest in him on 'morning afters' would get them closer to Bruce's money.

He and Garth had barely gotten settled in Bludhaven before Jays showed up, and everything had changed. Jays had taken up so much of his time, and anyone who thought adding an antagonistic, invested-in-his-damage teenager to a less than perfect relationship was a good idea needed serious psychiatric help. It had been a ride, getting Jays out of himself enough to start fighting for something he wanted, instead of just against the control he thought everyone else wanted over him. It hadn't been easy, and he and Garth had almost lost it all at one point, but somehow all three of them had made it this far.

The decision to let Jays go without a fight to make his own way in Gotham's Corner hadn't been easy, either. His fellow ex-Robin had accomplished a lot in under three years, growing from a physical liability with untrustworthy judgement to a valued junior partner, though neither one of them would ever put it that way. Jays had made it obvious - to Dick if not to himself - that it was only by completely defining their relationship as 'older and younger brothers' that Jays had managed to exempt Dick from his world-encompassing resentment, and actually learn from him.

The question Dick had kept coming back to, whenever Jays made noises about leaving, was whether 'Draco' had learned enough. And how, as a teacher, he was supposed to recognize that when it happened.

Babs had worked her way out of the resented category by means known only to the Oracle, but God alone knew how long it would take Jays to pardon anyone else. Having 'issues' didn't make someone incompetent, though, as anyone who'd ever eavesdropped on a JLA meeting for ten minutes knew. Dick had really talked to Jays in recent weeks, trying to decide whether another arguement would be listened to, or whether Jays would be right to tell him to shove it if he pushed too hard this time. Dick'd finally, with a grudgingness that surprised him, had to admit the kid seemed to have his head screwed on pretty straight about what he intended to do.

The wild pain-driven dreamer with a deficit of practicality who'd nearly gotten himself killed before turning up on Dick's doorstep was gone. Jays had realistic ideas about what he wanted to accomplish now, and if Dick didn't agree with all his plans, he had to admit it was from differences in perspective, not clear judgements of right and wrong.

And the sheer enthusiasm beneath the edgy impatience as Jays finally got moved into his own place... He seemed so damn young, but Dick respected his abilities and thought - hoped; told himself again and again as the kid packed - that he'd given Jays the training he needed to be effective, and to survive while he went about it. Jays was -

"Dick..."

\- happy in his new 'lair'. Which was somewhere else. A whole different city. And the door was locked.

There were fingers splayed across the denim on his thighs. And they were moving.

"Dick, he's not here. He won't be walking in..."

I thought of that, he wanted to say, but the part of his brain that did words seemed to be malfunctioning. He didn't fight it - that low, quiet, vibrating voice slipping through his body from Garth's could unwire any attempt at reasoning. Not even mentioning what the rest of him could do.

"He won't be listening, either..."

This was not something Dick would complain about.

"Stop thinking, Dick. Stop worrying. He won't be thumping on the wall for us to 'hold it down'..."

"Mmmr. Garth-"

"Hmmm?"

That wasn't particularly informative, but since Dick suddenly couldn't remember if there'd actually been a question he guessed it probably didn't matter. Not much did, with those cool lips brushing the tendon of his neck, and those skilled hands rubbing heat into the muscles of his thighs, and that voice - the Voice, gift of Atlantean physiology evolved to vibrate through water at a depth and density that would reduce human flesh to jelly - sliding into his very cells and doing a credible job of turning him to jelly all by itself. And Garth kept talking, little unintelligible sounds : Scottish Gaelic, and Atlantean, and indescipherable English, just in general chosen to keep a defenseless human brain from tracking on anything at all.

Fingertips almost-tickled their way onto his stomach, tracing along the ridges of his abs with blunt nails, raising tiny shivers in the muscles in their wake. A cool, rough tongue had found his earlobe and was busily making its way between there and the corner of his jaw, always stopping just short of where a quick turn could catch wandering lips in a kiss. Dick made a small sound of protest and felt Garth laugh, but he continued to taste his way back along to an ear that truly appreciated the attention.

Whimpering was for puppies, not for manly men in manly professions doing manly things with another manly man. Fortunately Dick didn't have to worry about demeaning himself that far. The light brushes that weren't quite touch, the soft sounds that weren't quite words, unable to feel the Atlantean's lesser body heat through clothing with hands too clumsy to do more than cling - Dick couldn't catch hold of any sensation, but he was feeling everything, every sense registering pleasure and not much else. Whimpering just wasn't an option. Thought was rapidly becoming not-an-option. It was possible, in fact, that - on pain of Jays or even, god forbid, Bruce, walking in on them - the best he could manage at this point was a bit of humming.

He didn't always get quite so lost, quite so fast, but the last few days had been a scramble, getting Jays ready to leave, and there hadn't been much time for privacy.Of course, by rights, he shouldn't ever be that lost, regardless of time or privacy.

By Bat-rights, of course, that had guided him into a lifetime of self-restraint and willful reserve. And he wouldn't really change that, despite all his late-teen Bruce-angsting. He'd just made a few adjustments to the original manual. Like that wariness might need to be trained into reflex, but he would decide for himself where the limits of trust began and ended.

He hadn't been looking for someone to trust when he and Garth were getting together. But when Garth had left, off to study with Atlan in a different dimension, and god alone knowing when he'd be back - or if he'd come back to Dick once he was - he'd realized how much he missed having someone with whom the only defenses ever necesary were the kind that faced out, against whatever the world might throw at them both.

When Garth had actually come back to him, Dick'd finally done something he should've ten years before - kicked Bruce and Bat-training out of his love-life. Lovers are a potentially lethal mental distraction; non-humans can't be trusted as partners, they don't remember human physical limitations; becoming accustomed to security in anyone's presence decreases your awareness, compromises your safety - Bruce had drilled it all in, and it made sense.

But exactly how much faith could a guy put in romantic advice from a man who'd only ever really been in love with the loyal daughter of a man out to wipe out ninety percent of the population of the world?

Dick had found himself a strange, not-unpleasant, kind of disturbed when none of the things he knew he should be considering actually disturbed him. He'd tried to kick the Bat out of his life half a dozen times before, in a hundred different areas, and it'd never worked. But when Garth did come back - that whisper in the back of his mind, where Bruce's words usually lived and frequently spoke up to save his life, was briefly, suspiciously, silent.

Maybe he knew Bruce better than he liked to admit. Maybe after almost twenty years he'd finally gotten the clue that silence didn't mean disapproval. His almost-father hadn't ever commented on his relationship with Garth.

Barring the times around a couple of truly spectacular fights, Garth's presence in his life provided a grounding, not a distraction. The Principle of Self-Denial might be Commandment One in the the Holy Order of Costumed People With Dark Capes, but Dick'd ditched the cape when he moved to the Haven. If he wanted to let Garth make him forget his name when they were in bed together, he would, and the little voice that nagged that he wasn't being a proper vigilante control-freak could go whisper at the Joker for all he cared - it wasn't as if he'd notice an extra voice in his head.

And if the voices in his own head were getting a little jumbled, at least they were all his own these days. And they had a very, very good excuse for getting manic just now.

Gentle hands and playful lips were working with the studied intent to make his body take over, to shut down his multi-track brain and all the thinking Garth had ordered him to stop doing. Of course, Garth had known how unlikely that was. But the Atlantean was making an earnest effort to make it happen anyway, in the only way he seemed to believe ever worked.

It didn't seem quite fair that the only time Garth got his complete attention was when they were in bed together. But the only time Dick seemed to remember that he needed to correct that was when those skillful hands were seconds away from taking away any words at all.

Garth was so intense when they were making love. He set out to sweep Dick along, with a will toward complete immersion in the moment, the now - he'd told Garth once, barely able to catch a breath and with pictographs from the Tao Te Ching swirling in his mind, that making love with him was the best meditation.

Garth had only laughed...

Whether it was native talent, or extensive practice, or the way they felt about each other, nothing had ever consumed him the way sex with Garth could. He could get lost in it without having to try, and the note of abandon in a life otherwise obsessed with discipline was very, very welcome.

He could let himself go. He couldn't not let himself go. And that was a gift he'd never imagined wanting, that he'd grown to acknowledge he'd never want to live without.

There were fingers doing clever things at his waist, buttons were opening and cool fingers could be felt, little brushes over cotton covered heat. Then the Voice was back, against his neck, "Dick, stop thinking. Jason's going to be fine."

He was thinking? "Umm. Uhm. No. I mean, yeah, he will, but no, wasn't thinking about him. You're the nice one. I was thinking about me."

The fingers moved again, and silent laughter slipped into him. "But you were thinking. I want you to be-" And then there were hands inside his open jeans, sliding them down, cool skin against his sides, an idle thumb tracing an intricate pattern involving his hipbone and the waistband of his briefs.

Dick wasn't sure what language he was speaking, trying to finish that sentence, but it was something with too many vowels, and Garth's lips stopped doing nice things to his ear as he cocked his head. "I don't understand - was that 'stop' in... Farsi? Bendi?"

Dick laughed and dropped his head back on a convenient shoulder, turned to kiss the corner of lips that were twitching despite an obvious attempt at seriousness. Mock-seriousness. Something. They curled more as they kissed back, and what was the question? There had actually been a question this time, he was sure of it...

Kiss. "Mmr, no. Not stop, either. Not Jason, not stop. Possibly 'wow.'" Another kiss, and the taste of Garth slipping into his mouth, and the feel of the solid chest behind him lifting in another chuckle. He arched back against firm muscle and growing heat as the hands slid over his hips again, under cotton and denim this time. He shifted to let them be tugged past his knees.

Then he rested his hands over Garth's again and, as always, instantly, they stopped. After a few moments Dick remembered how to breathe. "Was thinking about me. You. Having you all to myself here." It seemed important to say it, for some reason, before he lost the capacity for any words at all. To let Garth know it didn't take seducing him to get his attention. With or without distracting roommates.

Garth's hands slid slowly upwards, taking Dick's with them, back over hips and stomach and then wrapping around a chest where gooseflesh rose in anticipating trails a moment before the cool fingers crossed the skin. It was the Voice, and it wasn't, that murmurred in his ear, because this time it wasn't as if Garth were doing it to affect him. More like he'd slipped toward his native tongue by accident, even if there was no phonetic accent to the English words.

"You are here. With me, now."

And maybe he'd known more about what Dick had really been thinking before than should've been possible.

Then Dick could feel a grin on the lips nuzzling his ear. "You are with me. So no thinking." And the hands moved from under his own, out of the hug, one finding a path over stomach muscles that rippled beneath the touch, toward the inside of a thigh. The other splayed over his chest, and the clever thumb was picking out a new pattern.

Dick's teeth clenched over a blown out breath, then he gasped, slowly. His hands were trying to rub into the muscled thighs lying along the outside of his own, but catching clumsily on khaki fabric.

"Very good." Garth murmurred, mouth and light teeth moving down the tendon of his neck, sucking on the skin at the top of his shoulder.

Dick let his head fall the other way, providing easier access, and decided that could count as a nod. But there was one thought left. It was lost, and very much alone, and every time he tried to find words in it Garth's thumb moved again, or that hand making little circles moved closer to where he wanted to feel it, only to move teasingly back up his thigh. The thought wasn't leaving, though, so he tried to catch it again. It was his hands' fault, they kept sending the poor thing back, every time it tried to run away to the part of his brain where all the words were living for the moment. He almost had it.

Can't feel the yum.

Dick blinked, then blinked again, hard; shook his very dazed head slightly against the irrational flash on a commercial for Yum Yum Donuts, then put his hands over Garth's again. After a moment he managed, "You still have clothes on."

Or he thought he'd managed. When Garth laughed again his brain pointed out that he could very likely have said something about the keybirds being bent. But then Garth murmurred, "I hoped you'd notice that. Want to do something about it?" And Dick reached out, and words stopped mattering at all.

It was all sensation, and Garth's hands doing familiar things that were more intense for the familiarity. Attentive, god yes, attentive fingers that an attentive observer had learned to move in precisely the most mind-scattering ways. And never mundane, because the expression in those eyes that never left his, as Dick moved shaking hands to fumble away a shirt, to work a button and zipper and find cool, hard flesh that trembled as much as his hands, kept him in the moment. This moment and Garth looking into him and the world giving them time for it.

Garth was quiet, not unexpressive. Those eyes told Dick, every time, of what their intimacy meant to his lover, with every first touch that led to more.

Some things were always there. Variations on tenderness, and pleasure, and heat. Of that lost feeling in Garth that Dick shared, where they found each other and held on with lips and fingers and murmurred words. This was a shorthand language Dick had never denied knowing, even if only he and Garth understood what lay beneath the symbols. The promise between them that had no words.

The promise that'd been there, even the first time. With hesitant kisses and awkward brushes of fingertips, they'd promised one another. Not anything about the future that their lives made so uncertain. Only that they were both there, and alive, and that what they were doing was a joy to them both, and meant something more to each than the pleasant tingle of flesh. It had been enough, then and since, to keep them both finding ways to reinvoke that promise.

Some things came and went, belonged to a single moment or several, then grew or faded into something else as the pattern evolved between them. Awkwardness and hesitance, frustration, desperation and playfulness, a need to give or take or accept, the drive to assert the wholeness and reality of one another - they'd shared it all. And every time they looked into each other to see what this newness meant, to each, as they gave themselves to it.

This time it was moving fast, too fast for Dick to do more than find a desire that mirrored his own in the laughing violet eyes. Garth wanted him to get lost in it, to accept, and he was already so far into it that obliging was a simple matter of not changing anything. His hands were tracing the lines muscle carved in supple Atlantean flesh, his mouth was savoring the still-exotic flavor of skin that had never, would never, know sweat. There was hot, hot breath against his chest, an exploring tongue, and sparks flowing beneath his own skin as fingers ran down his back, found his hips, drew him forward.

The world narrowed to a flash of light, an explosion drowning out two heartbeats. Then they were both thrown into darkness.

What the...?

Dick came off the bed before the noise faded, so fast he didn't feel the floor beneath his feet until he was already crouched beside the window. He'd been riding the kind of adrenaline rush that had all senses focused inward, but that focus had snapped to his surroundings, cataloguing details, before he ever moved.

Power out in the whole building, nothing alive in the warehouse or loft other than the two of them. Jays had left his clock, the ticking one, which was really not surprising since he'd only gotten the thing in the first place to irritate Garth - or really, to disturb Garth and irritate Dick, which wasn't quite the same thing.

His mind ran through a checklist of observations in the space of a breath, searching for an explanation, preparing himself for conflict. There was no sign of tampering on the electric pole outside. Anyone who could get on the roof without tripping any kind of alarm would be dangerous. There was no one at all in the street below.

Which wasn't really surprising, Dick realized, adrenaline rush dropping away with a crash. Since the blue sky that'd held all day had surrendered to the week-long stretch of bad weather as the sun went down, and the rain was getting harder as he watched.

He'd broken off what was turning into a seriously hot quickie over -

Grayson, you're an idiot.

\- a lightning bolt. A completely mundane, not tossed by anyone, lightning bolt.

Behind him, still on the bed, Garth was laughing.

Dick straightened and turned around, setting hands on hips and determinedly keeping a straight face. Not that it mattered, since Garth had rolled over and pulled a pillow into the crook of his arm to bury his face in.

They'd set the emergency generator up to power only the essentials, none of which were in the main room, but the gray sky let enough light in the undraped window that Dick could clearly see the figure on the bed. Garth's pants, open but still on, had gotten twisted around his hips when he rolled over, and most of his head was underneath a pillow. He was trying so hard to hold in laughter that he was shaking, but Dick could still hear it, still feel it.

He tried to be irritated. He really did. But it was hard to hold onto irritation when there was a half-naked Garth trembling and making choked noises in his bed.

Well that and, if Roy had reacted like that to a crack of thunder with him around, Dick knew he wouldn't have tried quite so hard to be polite. Or tried at all, probably. Or - well, fine. He'd've let go and howled, but still, he wouldn't've been in the middle of making love to Roy when it happened, would he've?

Yick. Not an image I wanted, there.

He walked to the end of the bed, hands still on hips, and held the straight face until Garth uncovered enough to glance up at him. When his lover instantly stuck his head back under the pillow, and the bed started shaking harder, Dick lost the battle to a smile. But he thought he managed to interject something like real insecurity into his voice.

"Considering where we were, shouldn't you be just a little more dissapointed?"

Or maybe he didn't. Or maybe Garth just knew him so much better than that it was a lost cause. The bed shook harder, and wasn't it a good thing no one lived underneath them? Then the little choked noises started coming out as words, and Dick made out a few things that sounded like 'ever-vigilant' and 'hair-trigger reflexes' and finally 'the poor cloud never had a chance.'

After that he just sat on the bed, rubbed his face, and started chuckling, too.

When the mattress had lost some of its resemblance to the San Andreas fault line, he offered quietly. "Sorry about that. Talk about a mood breaker."

More tremors, but the quake seemed to be over. Finally Garth's head reappeared, apparently to stay, coming down on top of the pillow. He was still grinning, but it quieted a little when his eyes went over Dick's face. "That's all right. I really should've warned you."

Since he, of course, could feel a storm blowing up no matter how otherwise occupied he was. The extra humidity probably felt great. "That probably would've helped, yeah." Not that it was the most embarrassing thing Garth had ever seen him do.

Possibly a close second...

Reading him easily, the chagrin beneath the wry look, Garth's grin softened to a teasing smile. "Well, it's the first time you've ever done anything in bed that you have to be embarrassed about. With me, anyway."

Which would've been nice to hear, if it didn't remind him of that disaster with Kori, that time with the strawberries. Dick shook his head but grinned back, offering a hand. "That wasn't the kind of action I was hoping for before patrol, really."

Garth studied the hand a moment, as if to make sure it hadn't acquired anything sharp and easily thrown somewhere along the way, then looked back up into Dick's eyes. "But it was funny."

"I could tell."

Garth took pity on him, and took the hand, guiding it up to rest on his stomach. Either pity, or he still wanted to get back to the serious business of making the bed shake in more pleasurable ways as much as Dick did. It was hard to tell, the way his pants were twisted. But even with Dick sliding up the bed, following his hand up a smooth chest, Garth added, "Oh, come on. If Jays had done that you would still be-"

"Shh!!" He hissed it sharply and Garth blinked at him. Dick settled his hips back into the rumpled comforter and hissed again, this time against the side of Garth's neck, which made him squirm in the tangled pants. When he raised his head he was the one grinning. "That name. Do not. Ever. Mention that name in this bed. He's in his lair. Forget him."

"Until you call him tomorow." The tone, and the body arching back toward his lips, made it clear this was assent. But Garth added, "Just don't call it a 'lair' when you call him. He'll be back down here to argue."

"Hey, Bat Cave, Dragon's Lair, dramatic names are tradition." Dick shrugged, but his mouth was finding better things to do than tease an absent He's not here! Jays. Like a darkening nipple peaking under his tongue.

End


	3. Salt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My very first attempt at writing sexiness, deeply schmoopy. My version of these guys on the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written at a time when some archives were still putting Big Scary Warnings on fics just for having gay people in them. I mean, not for slash, and not for sex, just for gay people having recognizably gay G-rated thoughts.
> 
> The schmoop in this was overdone even at the time, don't get me wrong, but I remember how easy it was to get all passionate back when even a lot of slash writers thought talking about gay marriage was deeply weird. Gives me the warm fuzzies and makes me want to seek out other people's unabashed schmoop.

Salt.

It was definitely a cliché that he tasted like salt. Not that it was a permanent attribute. Atlanteans were bred to live in the womb of the sea - they had no reason to carry it with them in their blood as humans did.

Not that, at this particular moment, a sane lover could mind the difference.

Homo marium. Ocean-dweller. Water-breather. Man of the Seas.

To most of the human race, something unmistakably Other.

And even to his own people, nothing common. Atlantean representative to the world Above. Atlantean Prince. Tempest of the Titans. Violet-eyed outcast of a lost tribe. Once-ward of the King of Ten-Thousand Nations.

His husband of four months. Simply his for enough years before that for the formality to matter both less and impossibly more than it might.

Garth of Shayeris.

In this moment, looking up at him out of eyes the color of his precious depths; brightened with enough playful humor to keep the projected warmth lurking beneath from overwhelming them both.

Since Garth had come out of the water at dawn to find Dick already waiting, sprawled on a wide blanket at the base of the cliffs, it hadn't been a day for reflection. They'd run and wrestled and made mockeries of kata and training drills - in the water and out - napped in the sun; enjoyed that they were young and alive and there for one another. But after being apart for two weeks, each called by the duties he'd assumed to the place where he was needed most, it seemed right to Dick that he take a moment to acknowledge all the man so responsive beneath his lips truly was.

Dick braced his hands harder on either side of the deep chest as another breaker swept over them, keeping his place without lowering his body to Garth's. The foam settled away and he let his lips brush another trail up the smooth, tender skin just over the breastbone, between the well-muscled curves. Tasted sea-salt, and a trace of suntan lotion rubbed off his own skin, and the unbearably exotic flavor that was simply Garth. Looked into violet eyes again and couldn't stop the flash of a satisfied grin.

Garth. His own. Titles and detailed descriptions aside, so incredibly, simply, more than anyone else was ever graced to know. And his alone, for these precious hours, with responsibilities fulfilled and teammates threatened direly against interruption for anything less than the second coming of Magedon. Dick let himself revel in awareness of his lover, let his senses drink in the moment, knowing there'd unquestioningly be times in coming weeks when he'd embrace every detail he was able to hold in memory. He wanted to hold on to this picture:

Supple skin it was his privilege to touch glowing the color of the fine shells scattered around them, not yet bleached pale by the sun. Shivering oh-so-slightly in the summer sand. And with the waves pulsing forward to coat them both in cool spray, definitely tasting of salt.

The seagulls dancing on the fresh breeze gusting along the cliff face laughed raucously at the oblivious pair. A few of the big gray and white birds had settled in to scavenge the remains of their lunch while they'd each put in a small amount of real exercise - Garth swimming for the deep water and Dick taking a run through the heavy wind-drifted sand at the cliff-base - but both of them were content enough at the water's edge to make attempting to retake their beach blanket not worth the effort just yet.

Dick drew a deep breath, caught enough of his mind back from entrancement to cast a look grounding himself in the moment. The sand stretched in an unbroken sweep of rich golden-cream on this part of the coast, enough miles south of Bludhaven that even close-in the water didn't irritate Garth too badly. The cliffs were sharp edged and steep, warding against visitors, but the gray-brown tones left the area feeling coolly peaceful in its shadow of danger. Shells of rich, deep tans and golds were washing in and out of the water around them with each set of the rising tide. They'd have to go before three more hours passed, if Dick didn't want to have to either swim back or climb out, or let Garth make a spectacle in lifting him to the top of the cliffs.

Three hours. A man could do a lot with three hours, if he put his mind to it. And with the gorgeous, supple, so very well-known expanse of Garth's skin only inches from his lips, Dick found his mind was applying itself with very little need for conscious encouragement. God, the man was beautiful, a David with a bit more bulk to shoulders and thighs. And the soul that radiated from the perfect form, that unblemished innocence so perfectly tempered…

Growing restless under much too admiring blue eyes, the faintest blush darkened broad, fine cheekbones, and Garth shifted to sit up. Braced his arms comfortably behind him and smiled as the sudden within-inches proximity of their lips made Dick's tongue flick out to moisten his own. He shifted lean swimmer's hips, closing the distance between sun-touched bodies, letting skin brush finally, at outside thighs. With legs still curled comfortably beside him from where he'd settled to make slow work of Garth's outstretched body, Dick let a shift in posture entice his weight into a lean against the Atlantean's broader chest.

For an instant, the violet eyes looked past him, out over the waves Garth had risen from those hours ago where the depths, and the culture and world he was born to, quietly beckoned. He had sacrificed much, to make a life mostly Above with this man he loved, and never was it felt as keenly as when he left it all behind yet again. But the glance he didn't permit to be wistful did last only an instant. As the solid weight of Dick's slightly leaner frame came to rest flush with his from waist to chest it shifted back without either regret for the reaffirmed choice or apology for the moment's contemplation.

Garth let his mouth hover just short of a kiss, bowing his head and letting a breath caress Dick's lips, a physical promise as the warmth in those impossible eyes came entirely out of hiding for just a moment, to promise so much more. The call of the life Garth had made would always be the stronger. He'd never given Dick reason to doubt it, since the day he'd left Atlan and his prophecies to the past and the unknowable future. He shifted further toward sitting, and Dick's hands left the sand to wrap naturally around the solid chest, bodies instinctively comfortable after so many shared days and nights. Comfortable. And solid. And so very expressive, in the shift of muscles Dick couldn't see but definitely felt. His breath caught a little, and teeth pressed lightly into his lower lip.

"Garth..."

Lips quieted his intended words effectively. Talented and cool and the texture of rough silk, and god, had he thought the body contact was expressive…

Garth eased away from the kiss while Dick could still breathe. His voice was low and mellow and a murmur that wasn't; the voice Dick would hear in any crowd, that was never meant for any ears but his own. "I love you."

And what could those words mean, after the expression in Garth's eyes, the desire speaking through every inch of flush skin? Maybe it was just that voice resonating through him, and maybe it didn't matter why at all, but a quick shudder slipped through him anyway, and Garth's chest lifted against him for an instant in a silent chuckle. He let full lips touch lightly the sun-sensitized skin of nose and cheeks, glided over to nuzzle briefly at the convenient ear. 

Dick's chest shifted in an actual gasp; small, but obvious. Another voiceless chuckle, and Garth looked into him again. And as if that wasn't enough to guarantee silence, he continued in the Voice, "I want you."

Almost unbearable, the long, slow shudder that evoked, making Dick flex against the solid body in his arms. He concentrated on breathing. This was… They shouldn't…

If he had any real conviction that this wasn't what he wanted, all he had to do was shift back, just a few inches, and Garth would let the rising heat fade back into the mellow warmth that'd filled the long day - until Dick's playful kisses had started this. Garth had just looked so impossibly tempting, sprawled with unselfconscious grace in the sun waiting for Dick to return from his run...

Breathe. Right. "Garth. There are... some... people. Just up the beach." Some? Just? Where exactly had all that automatic, precise memory of observation gotten to? Garth dropped his head to brush the raised tendon on one side of his neck with those experienced lips, murmuring something melodic in Atlantean, and Dick was blindingly sure, for an instant, that he didn't care. But they...It…

Garth didn't look up again, stopping Dick's words as they shifted his throat at the source, before they ever found voice. A small but thorough taste, then slow words in that register more felt than heard. "I want, to love you. Before the sun hides behind the clouds the afternoon is bringing us. I want to see you moving in the sunlight." Then he went back to tasting, tongue slipping from Dick's voice box to become more active against the throb of his pulse.

Dick let the moan slip past his lips, soft and acknowledging, and in perfect understanding Garth raised his arms to solidify the embrace, bearing Dick's weight easily as he snugged strong arms across his shoulders. The next kiss found Dick's mouth, quietly ecstatic enough to lightly bruise tender human lips. A tiny slip, not unwelcome, but showing Dick what it meant to Garth that he would be allowed to fulfill those promises of minutes ago with his body. How grateful he was that Dick would permit his love to under-mine his restraint.

…Grateful… ...God…

Dick arched against him to deepen the kiss, the contact. Hoped his eyes told Garth his hesitance hadn't meant to provoke that, that his touch communicated how deeply honored he was to be that wanted, that loved. That he was the one who should be grateful, and was. Garth's hands eased from their brief hold into soothing strokes up Dick's shoulders, very slow, comforting the moment's dissonant emotion. Dick smiled against his lips, then followed them when Garth would have eased out of the kiss. Garth had grown beyond that uncertainty of himself that had made Dick's heart ache every time he accidentally invoked it. There were only shadows now, habits of expression, not deeply felt. But still...

Bodies accustomed to moving in wordless accord in such moments, it was simple to have Garth on his feet before the other man realized his own motion. Dick didn't let his body draw him into the full-length embrace it craved, but backed off a step and took Garth's hand between both his own. Garth offered him a smile, full of gentle humor, warmth, touched with a heat that made Dick's heart speed up another notch. But he didn't let himself return the smile. Playfulness could wait, just a moment.

He took another step back, into the breakers. There was a sandbar a few hundred yards out, shallow enough for him to stand on. It was one gift he could give Garth all too seldom, the experience of sharing themselves in his natural environment, under the conditions that brought most pleasure to his body, rather than Dick's. The most ease to his soul, to be embraced by the ocean he loved and the man who loved him, together.

A moment's hesitation kept Garth's feet still, even as Dick sensed the instant swell of response that wanted to sweep his lover forward, into making the all of too-rare opportunity. Dick let one hand touch the considering face, gently, thumb stroking a particular muscle before it, quite, ticked. Garth was years past the belief that he didn't deserve his own desires, past the fumbling words and halting looks that asked for nothing beyond being allowed to make love to Dick with every detail fitted to Dick's satisfaction. But even now there'd been no question that he would falter over acceptance of this 'gift' that required some slight sacrifice from his Upworlder love. Old habit, not still deeply felt but solidly ingrained…

Garth blinked at him for a moment, emotions flowing behind his eyes in a quick-silver shimmer. The first flush of hesitance went toward embarrassment at the pattern and Dick's anticipation of it, then to a weird, quirky humor Dick reflected with a twitch of lips, on into a flick of self-reproval Dick tightened his own jaw a bit at, that finally dissolved into the genuine humor and pleased response the moment warranted. He pressed Dick's hand to his cheek and laughed, so low and warm it seemed to seep through Dick's body like slow honey. That rare, precious laughter…

Not letting his expression lighten, even as a bone-deep shudder moved him slightly, Dick slipped his hand to the back of Garth's neck and brought himself a step back up the beach for a very, very serious kiss. Bodies flush and eyes open, Dick put everything he had into communicating just how very much he cherished the man he held. Garth responded in kind, offering as much in return without the shyness that had mitigated all such professions once. When he shifted his head back, he smiled in a way that set glowing the depths of solemn eyes.

"I love you, too. Let me make love to you? Out there?" Dick waited a heartbeat and when Garth's blush from the worshipful kiss slipped easily to a flush of pleased response, he laughed and moved lightly to the end of their arms reach, tugging Garth's hand. "Please?"

"Dick..." Ah, the Voice again, tuned to vibrate through water, or send shuddering a human body that had never tried too hard at cultivating the discipline to resist it. Violet eyes were dancing toward mischief, and then the Atlantean was moving with a speed he seldom indulged on land. Moving him, with a careful, easy strength he almost never allowed himself to demonstrate, gliding them both effortlessly into the water.

The shift of weight that moved him into perfect balance against Garth's back was pure reflex. Dick hugged his lover with every inch of his body, tightened his hands in wordless communication - and where they wouldn't, quite, tickle - and knew Garth could hear him laughing.

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Randomly, I think around the time I wrote this I got an ADULT CONTENT-M/M SEXUAL THEMES (as a *compromise*, now) tag for a story about Sabertooth with an OC adult admiring someone's shoulders and thinking about another guy he wanted to be in a relationship with but wasn't.
> 
> Looking at all this old fic and posting this stuff under the AO3 rules is making me sentimental. We've come a long way, baby.


End file.
